I've encountered this before too, and unfortunately, just had to go back to the last 'checkpoint' save that I had.
There *is* a bug in MAX where upon crashing, and attempting to save at crashtime (save a copy), that not only the file that you were working on becomes empty, but the recovery file also gets written as empty. Check and make sure the file sizes aren't close to nothing - if they are, then its gone.
I'm sorry to hear this about your work, but unfortunately the only recovery trick that I really know of is merging. Start a new file, and try and merge the contents of your old scene into it. If you can atleast see the objects list, then most likely it is just one object that may be the problem, so merge them over in groups to isolate the problem. Its worth a try. Also, I know you said that you tried your recovery file, but did you also try the .bak files in /autoback?
Finally, there is maxfile.bak (also in autobak), which is updated every time you save, with the last file that you saved. If you haven't changed anything, this might still be your last good save and not the recovery.
And I know its a bit late to tout this, but incremental saves. File0000, File0001, File0002...thats why the '+' button is there in the save as box.
Good luck with the files
